General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Love with the Proper Stranger

Love with the Proper Stranger is a 1963 American black-and-white romantic comedy-drama directed by Robert Mulligan, starring Natalie Wood as a pregnant Macy's sales clerk and Steve McQueen as the footloose jazz musician who fathered her child. It was released by Paramount Pictures on December 25, 1963, runs 102 minutes, and received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Actress for Wood.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	December 25, 1963, Paramount Pictures; 102 minutes, black and white, 1.85:1 aspect ratio¹^•²
Key personnel	Directed by Robert Mulligan; produced by Alan J. Pakula; written by Arnold Schulman; cinematography by Milton R. Krasner; score by Elmer Bernstein²
Leads	Natalie Wood as Angie Rossini; Steve McQueen as Rocky Papasano; co-starring Edie Adams, Herschel Bernardi, Tom Bosley, and Harvey Lembeck²
Academy Awards	Five nominations: Best Actress (Wood), Best Screenplay (Schulman), Cinematography (Krasner), Art Direction, and Costume Design (Edith Head)²
Theme song	Music by Elmer Bernstein, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, recorded by Jack Jones; number 62 on the Billboard Top 100 singles for 1964³
Critical standing	82% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (11 reviews) and 86% on the Popcornmeter from more than 1,000 user ratings¹
Home video	Remastered in HD and released on video by Kino Lorber on September 19, 2017⁴^•²

Spoilers

Plot

Angie Rossini (Natalie Wood) is an innocent sales clerk at Macy's from a repressive Italian-American Catholic family. After a short-lived affair with Rocky Papasano (Steve McQueen), a jazz musician, she discovers she is pregnant. She tracks Rocky down at his Manhattan musicians' union hall to tell him; he does not remember her at first.¹^•⁵

Angie does not expect Rocky to marry her; she needs his help to raise money for an illegal abortion, while her family pressures her to marry Anthony Columbo (Tom Bosley), the shy owner of a small restaurant.² According to the American Film Institute catalog synopsis, Rocky consults his current girlfriend, Barbie (Edie Adams), a stripper, who jealously throws him out; he then finds a "doctor," raises the money, and takes Angie to meet his unsuspecting parents, who like her immediately. When the two finally confront the reality of the abortion, Rocky refuses to let Angie go through with the procedure after seeing the unsanitary facility.⁶^•¹ The film ends with Rocky attempting to make an honest woman of her, culminating in a chase and a long kiss outside Macy's.¹^•⁷

Subject matter and tone

For 1963 the premise was considered risqué: a premarital one-night stand resulting in pregnancy, and a search for an illegal abortionist, treated in a mainstream studio film.⁷ A scholarly analysis describes the film as bold for its release period, noting that although it ends with a potential marriage, the story rests on premarital sex and its consequences.¹¹ The film's structure mirrors that tension. The first half plays as straight drama as the pair hunt for a doctor and money; after they decide against the abortion, the tone shifts toward romantic comedy, ending in a climax outside Macy's.⁷ One retrospective account places the film between two eras of New York cinema, caught between the glamorous Hollywood of the 1950s and the grittier independent filmmaking of the 1970s.⁷

Production

Pakula-Mulligan. Alan J. Pakula and Robert Mulligan formed their own production company in 1962, and its first project was the acclaimed To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Love with the Proper Stranger was their second venture, produced under the Pakula-Mulligan and Boardwalk Productions banners with distribution by Paramount Pictures.³^•⁸ The studio was willing to cast Steve McQueen in the lead even though he was not yet an established star.⁹ Pairing him with Natalie Wood, then one of the top young actresses, added a new dimension to McQueen's appeal and helped propel him toward the superstar status he would hold over the following decade.³

The creative team included cinematographer Milton R. Krasner, editor Aaron Stell, composer Elmer Bernstein, and costume designer Edith Head.²^•¹⁰ The title song paired Bernstein's music with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and was recorded by Jack Jones.³

New York location work. Although on-location filming was not unusual for the early 1960s, the production stood out for how much dialogue was recorded on the streets. Filming took place around Manhattan, including the former musicians' union hiring hall at the Level Club at 253 West 73rd Street, where Angie tells Rocky she is pregnant, and the former Washington Market in lower Manhattan.⁷ Time Out's review singled out the "vivid location shooting in New York's Little Italy."¹

Reception

The film was not a resounding box office success, but both stars liked working with Mulligan enough to return: McQueen immediately, in Baby, the Rain Must Fall (1965), and Wood in Inside Daisy Clover (1965).³

Critics have generally responded well. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds 82% among 11 approved critics and 86% among more than 1,000 audience ratings.¹ Variety credited the film's survival of its shortcomings to its "breezy good nature and the animal magnetism of its two stars." Tom Milne of Time Out called it familiar in theme but given "a delightfully fresh flavour" by Mulligan's atmospherically low-key direction and the performances of Wood and McQueen. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times found the picture diverting but weak on its main romantic point, and Matt Brunson rated it "a bracingly mature film that tackles weighty issues in an intelligent and sober manner, at least until the home stretch."¹ The writer Joan Didion, reviewing in Vogue, described it as "so curious a mixture of old-fashioned schmaltz and up-to-the-minute grubbiness" that she concluded she was "the slightest bit over the hill."¹

Awards

In addition to its five Academy Award nominations, the film earned Golden Globe nominations in the top dramatic acting categories for both stars. Wood placed second in the Golden Laurel Award for Best Female Dramatic Performance and won the Best Actress award at Argentina's Mar del Plata Film Festival.³ Wood's performance is counted by some viewers as the third and final Oscar-nominated role of her career.¹

Later availability

Kino Lorber remastered the film in HD for home video, releasing it on September 19, 2017, and keeps it available for theatrical and educational bookings.⁴^•² Turner Classic Movies has aired the film and published a feature article on it.¹²

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026